Nicaraguan Health Workers Strike, Protest

Weekly News Update on the Americas, issue #421,
22 February 1998

On Feb. 20, some 1,000 nurses, cooks and support staff of
Nicaragua's Health Ministry (MINSA) held a march through the
streets of Managua to demand job stability and salary
reclassification. The protesters ended their march in front of
the MINSA headquarters, where they staged a sit-in that lasted
several hours. Gustavo Porras, leader of the Federation of Health
Workers (FETSALUD), told Notimex that the protests will continue
until the authorities agree to negotiate. Porras gave the Health
Ministry a petition supporting the union's demands with the
signatures of some 20,000 Health Ministry employees (out of a
total of nearly 30,000).

The march had the moral support--although not the direct
participation--of more than 3,000 MINSA doctors who began their
own partial strike on Feb. 16 to demand salary increases. The
doctors, headed by the Doctors' Movement for Salaries, are
remaining in their clinics but have suspended outpatient services
and scheduled surgeries. On Feb. 19, a day after MINSA officials
cancelled a scheduled meeting with the doctors, the doctors
stepped up the pressure by staging a 24-hour all-out strike; they
are threatening to go on an open-ended all-out strike if
authorities continue to refuse to negotiate. [Notimex 2/19/98,
2/20/98; Popol Na Weekly Informative Summary 2/15-20/98]

As MINSA doctors and support workers staged strikes and protests
on Feb. 19, Health Minister Lombardo Martinez left Managua with
another three cabinet members to take part in the election
campaign of the ruling Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) on
the Atlantic coast. [Notimex 2/20/98]